Diary of a Mad Fat Girl (11 page)

“
Oh,” she says, “Well, uh, okay, then.
So, uh, you wanna run to China Kitchen before the lunch buffet
ends?”

“
Sure,” I say, smiling at my sly
conversational maneuver, “just let me change shorts.”

“
Okay,” Lilly says. “Hey! I’ll call
and check on Chloe.”

“
Good idea,” I say opening the back
door, “I haven’t heard from her in a day or two.”

When I walk back out on the porch, Lilly is
perched on the edge of the lounger with a gloomy look on her
face.

“
What?” I ask. “What is
it?”

“
Her number’s been changed,” she
pauses, “to an unlisted number.” She tilts her head sideways and
gives me a hard look, “When’s the last time you talked to
her?”

“
She called me on, let me think, what
day was it?” I get my phone and go to recent calls, “Wednesday. She
called Wednesday and asked if we’d found out anything about
Richard.”

“
What’d you tell her?”

“
Hell, I told her no. Didn’t we agree
not to tell her anything until we could sit down and talk to her
face to face?”

“
Yeah,” Lilly sighs and shakes her
head. “She’s staying. She is staying with him. She is cutting us
off and she is staying with that bastard.”

“
Are you sure you dialed the right
number?” I ask.

“
It's on my speed dial, Ace!” Lilly
exclaims. “Try it from your phone if you don’t believe
me.”

I scroll down to Chloe’s name, punch the
green button, and get the same results.

“
Forget China Kitchen,” I say, feeling
my face getting red. “Let’s get on with the stalking. I want enough
dirt on Richard Stacks to bury him ten times over. And I wanna put
everything we get on him in a big fat binder and take it to Chloe
so she can finally see for herself that Richard Stacks
really
is the piece of shit human
being that we always told her he was.”

“
Let’s do it!” Lilly says. “Oh, and I
took that email she sent us Monday, you know the one with the list
of potential mistresses she cross-referenced with the little black
book? That was pretty ballsy of her, by the way, and I have to say
I’m pretty proud of her for that,” I nod in agreement and she
continues, “anyway, I googled every tramp on there and I’ve got
info,” she looks at me and raises her eyebrows,
“
good
info, on all of them
except for one. LeJay Cummer. There was absolutely nothing on her
anywhere. It was weird.”

“
It’s probably a fake name. Like a
stripper or a prostitute or some other random brand of human trash.
Hey,” I give her a suspicious look, “when did you get so computer
savvy?”

“
Well it wasn’t very difficult, I
mean, most of them are strippers or call girls so they were pretty
easy to pin point and I don’t have a job anymore and haven’t had
anywhere,” she pauses and sighs, “I haven’t had anywhere to go
lately, so I had to do something.”

“
Alrighty then,” I say, letting the
reference pass, “let’s take my car. We better leave that
Hey-Look-at-Me-Here-I-Come-Down-the-Road-in-my-Pussy-Wagon thing
you drive parked here.”

“
Ha ha, Ace, very funny,” she says
flatly. “Now take me to Red Rooster.”

22

While awaiting the arrival of brown bags of
drive-in goodness, I peruse the list of Richard Stacks the Fourth’s
potential side dishes and I can’t stop thinking about his weird
looking penis and wondering how all of his whores react to it when
they see it for the first time. Or anytime.

I run a finger down the list and count
seventeen women in all. According to Lilly’s pink ink notes, seven
of the women work the poles at various clubs in Memphis and four
are call girls from the same area. Two are marked down as employees
of a titty bar about fifteen miles from here known far and wide for
its trashy, low class women. One is Mrs. Dana Dannan of leather and
lace fame. Two are locals and then there is LeJay Cummer.

“
You know none of those women are
going to talk,” I mumble.

“
Yeah, I know,” Lilly agrees. “Our
only hope there is catching him red-handed.”

I look down at the last name on the list and
get a sneaking suspicion that LeJay Cummer is indeed a fake name.
Like Allota Vagina or Dixie Normus.

“
So we have two women here that we can
track,” I say, tapping the paper. “Who do we start with? The hair
cutting lady or the real estate agent?”

“
Why do you think he spends so much
time on the phone with a real estate agent?”

“
I have no idea,” I say. “You think
he’s doing legitimate business with her or you think maybe he’s
sporting that dog collar around her open houses to impress
potential clients.”

“
And that penis,” Lilly whispers,
“what
was
that?”

We crack up as the food arrives and I tip
the carhop two bucks.

“
C’mon,” Lilly says. “Let’s eat on the
way to Stacks and Stacks.”

“
Stacks and Stacks? Why are we going
there?” I mumble with a steaming tater tot between my
teeth.

“
Because I need to put this on Dick
Richard’s car,” she holds up a small, dark object about the size of
a half-a-dollar.

“
Dick Richard,“ I muse, “that’s a good
one.” I eyeball the device. “What is that thing?”

“
GPS tracking dot,” she says proudly,
“magnetized and designed especially for tracking automobiles in
real time.”

“
Where the hell did you get that? And
do you even know what ‘real time‘ means?”

“
Got it from Deputy Hotass,” she
smiles and picks the lettuce off her burger, “and ‘real time’ means
that the instant the car moves, we can track it on the computer. No
delay.”

“
Well aren’t you in tight cahoots with
the local law enforcement,” I say sarcastically.

“
I’m in tight cahoots with Dax
Dorsett,” she says with a sly smile and I can tell by the look on
her face that she has done the deed.

“
When did this happen?” I ask, kind of
surprised but kind of not.

“
I ran into him at Pier 57 last
night,” she says, smiling like the cat that swallowed the canary.
“He was getting take out and I was getting take out so I suggested
he take his take out to my house.” She leans her head back and
smiles, “We ate, had some drinks, and then it was
on.
Oh my goodness, was it ever
on.”

“
Drinks?” I yell. “With a
cop?”

“
He was off duty, you dumbass!” she
snorts. “Anyway, I told him our situation and he had a few ideas.”
She pauses, “Actually, he’s the one who dug up that info on all
those skanky hoes.” She nods toward the list on the dash. “He’s
real smart with computers and electronics and junk like
that.”

“
Did you discuss our stalking plans
with an officer of the law before or after you had sex with
him?”

“
Uh. In between.” She starts
sniggering. “Oh God, Ace, I think I’m in love.”

“
That good, huh?” I ask, trying to
conceal my astonishment at this revelation. “Made you fall in love?
Just like that?”

“
It wasn’t just the sex, although I
have to say it was
above
and
beyond
anything I
have
ever
experienced. In
my
life,
” she looks at me, “I
mean, in my whole entire life. And I
like
him and I like hanging out with him. He’s
funny and sweet and he’s so smart. And let me tell you girl,
brother looks good in his street clothes.” she turns to me. “He
seriously knows how to dress.”

“
And undress apparently,” I add,
giggling to myself. I look at her and she is staring out the window
with her elbow on the console and her cheeseburger is dripping
ketchup onto the gear shift. “Hey, lover girl, get your damn
cheeseburger under control!”

“
Oh my word!” She snaps out of her
daze and starts wiping down the console. “I am so
sorry.”

“
So, let me get this straight,” I say
with a no small trace of skepticism. “Last night you slept with a
law enforcement officer and today you are going in broad daylight
to stick a GPS dot on Richard Stacks’ car in his office parking
lot?”

“
Abso-freakin’-lootley,” she says,
“just pull into that little strip mall with Merle Norman in it and
I’m gonna waltz over there and stick it under his
bumper.”

“
Whatever you say,” I pause. “Sleeping
with a police man has certainly made you unafraid to break the
law.”

“
Shut up, Ace! You’re just jealous!”
she snaps as I turn in to the parking lot. “Now pull into the last
space in front of the cell phone store and I’m gonna go around
behind this building,” she says, pointing, “because his car is
backed in over there by those trees over, so all I have to do is
sneak up into that thicket and pop! It’s on there.”

“
Okay, that’s not near as dangerous as
you made it sound,” I say, looking over at her strappy silver wedge
sandals. “You wearing those?”

“
Of course I am. You know I walk
better in heels than I do in tennis shoes,” she says, “and I cased
the place earlier so I kinda knew it wouldn’t be that hard to
do.

“
Small Time Criminal,” I say nodding
in approval. “Fah sho.”

“
Fah sho,” she says and gets out of
the car.

I watch as she trots past the end of the
building, then dips into the thicket separating the rear parking
lot of the accounting firm from the back side of the strip
mall.

Two seconds after she disappears into the
brush, Richard Stacks the Fourth walks out the back door of his
office and makes a bee line for his car. I think for a second about
jumping out and chasing Lilly into the shrubbery, but he would be
able to see me every step of the way. I pick up my cell phone to
call her, but hesitate because she never puts her phone on silent
and wouldn’t hear it if she did.

Just as he reaches the front of his car,
Lilly pops back out of the bushes and gives me a big thumbs up. I
start waving frantically with one hand and pointing with the other.
She whirls around and sees him and jumps back into the trees just
as he glances down to where she was standing. Only after the white
Lexus is well out of sight does she creep out of the brush.

She smiles triumphantly and starts taking
long, confident strides back toward the car when, all of a sudden,
she stops short, looks to her left, and freezes. I follow her line
of vision and my eyes come to rest on a petite, silver haired lady
holding a giant lady bug purse.

I know that little old lady. Everyone in
Bugtussle knows that little old lady.

It’s Gloria Peacock.

23

Gloria Peacock is a spunky little senior
citizen rumored to be one of the richest women in the South. Word
is she knows everything about everybody in town and has known
everything about everybody in town for the past fifty years. Maybe
longer.

I look at Lilly then at Gloria Peacock and
take a deep breath.

They both just stand there like cowboys at a
shoot-out about to draw.

Lilly looks at her then back at me then back
at her and Gloria Peacock looks at her then at me then back at
Lilly and I’m looking back and forth between them wondering how
long Mrs. Gloria Peacock has been standing there with her big ol’
lady bug purse.

Nobody moves.

All of a sudden, Lilly gets this look on her
face like she just remembered where she was and starts walking
toward Gloria Peacock, who steps into the shade as she
approaches.

They have a brief interchange that ends with
Lilly and Gloria Peacock both tossing their heads back and laughing
like they just heard the best joke ever. Then Mrs. Peacock waves
one of her frail, diamond laden hands at me and smiles the biggest,
most genuine smile I have ever seen.

Lilly comes and gets in the car.

“
What was that?” I ask. “What was so
funny?”

“
Well, Mrs. Gloria Peacock saw the
whole thing.” Lilly glances back at the elderly lady who has just
gone inside Merle Norman. “She was very brief and told me, in a
nutshell, that she knows everything that’s been going on for the
past week and would really like to sit down and speak with
us.”

“
Sit down and speak with us? So are
we, like, in trouble with her?”

“
Oh, no,” Lilly laughs, “not by a long
shot!” She looks at me, “She says she has just what we need to get
what we want.”

“
How does she know what we need and
what we want?”

“
I asked her the same thing and do you
know what she said?”

“
Why, hell no. How would I know
that?”

“
She said, and I quote, ‘Sweetheart,
I’m Gloria Peacock and when I tell you that I have what you need,
you don’t ask questions, honey, you just show up.’”

“
Whoa,” I whisper. “That’s pretty
serious.”

“
No doubt,” Lilly says and then
squeals, “and she’s expecting us at her house tomorrow afternoon at
2 p.m.”

“
Oh! You are lying!” I say, getting
really excited. “You are freakin’ lying to me! We, me and you, have
a date with Gloria Peacock at The Waverly Estate? No shit? Are you
serious?”